Stop Gambling Away your Health
I’m not a gambler either, but stick with me here.
I walk into the casino and sit down at a blackjack table. I’ve got $400 in my pocket that most definitely came from what I was supposed to put in my 401k this month, but fuck it. I’ve got a life to live.
In my mind, I fully expect to lose my $400, and that’s okay because I think of it as admission to the theme park. Maybe I’ll get a few hours of high dopamine winning (and losing) before my money runs out. Plus, who knows? I could win big and this entire trip to Vegas will be paid off. Who doesn’t love free money?
Even though I don’t do it very often (maybe ten times in my entire life), I fucking love gambling. I sit down at a table and immediately feel like I’m doing something naughty. Every hand of blackjack is a calculated risk that is not in my favor, but I do it anyway because the thrill of potentially winning big is just too enticing. Sure, the odds may be low, but we’re talking about free money here. There’s nothing like it. I know I said I was okay with losing everything, but of course I would love to double, triple, or even quadruple what I came in with.
And even though 9 out of the 10 times I’ve gone gambling I’ve lost money, that one time keeps me coming back for more. It’s fun. It’s mischievous.
It’s insidious.
When we look at our health, there are some obvious gambles we can take.
Smoking
Drinking
Being Sedentary
Not Sleeping
Chronic Stress
Eating Poorly
These are all gambles that people around the world are willing to risk. Maybe you’re willing to take the gamble of smoking a few cigarettes a month, but you’re not willing to take the risk of smoking every day. Maybe you’re willing to take the gamble of eating McDonalds once a month, but you’re not going to gamble going every day.
I’m absolutely willing to gamble almost every one of these items (except smoking, ha, that’s just dumb), if the odds are with me. But that’s the ticket, what keeps the odds in our favor?
I knew that Fuck Luck was going to be the title of this book because, well, I knew that people deciding to read a book with that title were my kind of people, but it DID create this problem of how to further this gambling metaphor. I’m doing my best here.
The best way I can explain behaviors that better our odds and reduce the risk in our gamble of life is by comparing them to a high-yield savings account.
If you haven’t heard of this and you’re still using a regular savings account, pull your head out of your ass and OPEN ONE TODAY. I’m not a finance person by any means, but the stock market goes up by 8% a year on average and has high risk. My high yield savings account has a rate of 5% and zero risk. Pretty unbelievable. I’m not saying don’t invest in the stock market, I’m saying stop putting your money in a savings account with no yield. Duh.
Okay - sorry, yes. When we look at the time-tested, researched, tried and true foundations for our health, we get three main categories: nutrition, exercise, and recovery. When we put our time, money, and effort into these categories, we’re putting money into our high yield savings account. Not NEARLY as sexy as spending money playing blackjack at the casino especially because there’s no chance of suddenly winning big, but have you heard of compound-fucking-interest? Putting money into this account that grows 5% a year can have some HUGE benefits throughout your life. You see the metaphor, right?
Put into this perspective, who would spend all their money on gambling, just for an (incredibly small) chance to win big, when they could put their money into a high yield savings account and consistently grow their wealth?
The unfortunate truth is that life will always be a gamble. You could never smoke a cigarette in your life and still get lung cancer. The odds are on your side, but it could still happen. However, in most cases, our behaviors will have a big impact on the odds we’re given. Not only will avoiding cigarettes keep your odds of getting lung cancer low, you exercising, eating well, and sleeping could also better your odds.
Every behavior - positive or negative - could impact your gamble in life, and we have a decent amount of control over how to better your odds.
Listen, this book isn’t about trying to reduce your risk to zero. Life is a gamble. It is. All we can do is create habits and behaviors that reduce our risk to the level we’re comfortable with. This is going to look different from person to person and that’s okay.
My risk reduction may look like exercising 3 days a week and eating lots of vegetables and fruit, but still eating ice cream for dessert every night. Your risk reduction may look like exercising 6 days a week, gardening every day, eliminating sugar, and being a vegetarian.
“Every behavior - positive or negative - could impact your gamble in life, and we have a decent amount of control over how to better your odds.”
We get to decide how much effort, time, and money we want to put into reducing our risk, and you’re going to have to reconcile with the other end of the spectrum: living life to the fullest with experiences, food, people, relaxation, fun, and anything else that could potentially pull you away from “ideal” health.
What I know for sure, is that life is about balance. A life lived purely for health is a life not well-lived. A life lived purely for pleasure is a life not well-lived.
Finding the balance between the two allows us to live a long, fulfilling life without regrets OR restriction.
In this work playbook, we’ll be discussing the time and research proven methods for making your life less of a gamble. Some days will feel elementary or obvious, and that’s okay. So often we’re looking for the shiny new product to get us faster results that we forget that the basics, the research that has been around for hundreds of years and still stands up, is going give us the best odds. It’s not new, it’s proven.
I know I mentioned above some obvious examples of gambles we all take with our health, but before we hop into day one, I want to point out some gambles that aren’t on your radar:
Supplements
Ice Baths
Theraguns
Waist Trainers
Detoxes
Each of these things may not seem like a gamble to you, but I want to ask you a question: If they aren’t completely proven to work, and you spend time and money on these things without a positive result, that still seems like a gamble, right?
There is research for and against all of these topics, and if you have time and money to burn, why not try them, right? That’s your prerogative. Do it.
However, my issue with these new fads that don’t have proper research to back them up, is that they distract from what we know actually betters our odds. It’s in our nature to look for a quick fix for our health problems. We know that being healthy can be time-consuming, painful, and expensive, so any Instagram ad that promises breakthrough results is going to be hard to resist.
The reality is that people replace the well-researched health foundations - nutrition, exercise, and recovery - for fad products with little to no efficacy. These products are (most of them time) not technically hurting you, but by taking away your attention from the main things, they are effectively increasing the gamble. Your odds are getting worse even though you think your juice cleanse should be making the odds better.
For the next 365 days (fck that’s a long time, I know), I urge you to set aside the fluff and focus exclusively on the foundations laid out in this book. Once we’ve established these foundations and actually put them into practice, then you can go all out on supplements and ice baths. Trust me that I’m going to lead you in the right direction over the next year and sift through what will actually help better your odds in the gamble of life.
This is not a book where you can skip ahead. We need this full year to internalize and practice healthy foundations in order to make these habits a lifestyle. Get used to the idea that this will take you AT LEAST a year to finish.
If I had to boil this exhausting metaphor down, our goal is to keep the main thing the main thing. Anything that doesn’t fit into our categories of main things (nutrition, exercise, recovery), is NOT the main thing, and we need to let them go for now. It’s tough to ignore the brand new, shiny research you see on social media, but I guarantee you’ll live a longer, more fulfilling life for it.
I want to be very clear that I want this book to be a PLAY book, not a WORK book. You’re going to have to put in some effort to stay consistent and build habits, but the best way for us to motivate ourselves to keep going is to turn work into play. Each day, I want you to ask yourself:
“How can I make today fun?”
